With some computer systems, the operation of the system is largely transparent to the end user. For example, employees of a company or customers of a business may be provided with various applications and/or services, and/or access to data or a network, without being aware of the location from which these services are being provided, or details about the implementation of the computer system. A system administrator may, for example, establish the services available to an end user on one or more servers interconnected via a network. This “enterprise system” model allows the administrator to centralize the installation of applications, customization of the system, establishment of access permissions, and general operation of the system to ensure that desired services are available to the end users.
An enterprise system may be, for example, a collection of one or more devices interconnected via a computer network to perform a desired function or to carry out various operations of any organization, such as a business organization. An enterprise system may vary widely in scale, such that a single computer or thousands of devices widely distributed over multiple locations may constitute an enterprise system. An enterprise system may provide various services to its end users or clients over a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), wireless network, other network, other types of communication media, or a combination thereof.
An enterprise system is considered “available” when an end user perceives that applications and services are running and operating correctly. High availability may be important to many enterprise systems, such as systems which support electronic commerce (e-commerce) or other types of systems that users expect to be substantially functional on a continuous basis.